Because of him, I made a name for myself: Yusuf Pathan bids emotional farewell to brother Irfan

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Indian southpaw Irfan Pathan announced his retirement from international cricket on Saturday. The 35-year-old represented India in 29 Tests, taking 100 wickets and scoring 1105 runs. He also played 120 ODIs, picking up 173 wickets and scoring 1544 runs in the 50-over format. While the 2007 T20 World Cup final hero, picked 28 wickets and scoring 172 runs in the shortest format of the game.

“I am announcing retirement from all forms of cricket. I have been fortunate to share the dressing room with greats of the game like (Sourav) Ganguly, (Rahul) Dravid and (VVS) Laxman. I am calling time on my career,” Pathan told Star Sports on Saturday.

Irfan's elder brother Yusuf Pathan, who also played for the Indian team at the senior level, opened up on his childhood days with younger one.

"Going back to our early days, I remember that we used to fight. As I was the older brother, I cheated a lot. Of course, because we played a lot of cricket we often got a scolding at home and also got beatings. But it toughened us up,” Yusuf told Indian Express.

Yusuf also credited his fame to Irfan as he said it was because of his younger brother he became famous in the domestic circuit itself.

“I must say that it is because of him that I too became well-known and made a name for myself. When I played domestic cricket, people knew that I was Irfan’s brother,” said Yusuf.

“Even in my mohalla people sometimes refer to me as Irfan’s brother. I always feel proud to be known as his brother. In a way, we put Baroda on the cricketing map again. Now people connect Baroda with Irfan Pathan,” he added.

The Pathan brothers were part of India's 2007 T20 World Cup-winning campaign. Yusuf made the debut in the final match itself against arch-rivals Pakistan. The elder Pathan feels it was the injuries that destroyed Irfan's career but he handled the tough phases well.

“Irfan suffered many injury setbacks but he handled those difficult phases in his career well. More often that not he made a successful return from an injury lay-off,” he said.

Yusuf also took to Twitter to congratulate his brother for a successful career with an emotional post.